Definition of mean median & mode

Written by amy s. jorgensen| 13/05/2017

Whether you are a math student, survey taker, statistician or researcher, you are going to need to calculate the average of multiple numbers from time to time. But finding the average is not always straightforward. Averages can be found in three ways--mean, median and mode.

Mean

When you think of averaging, you are most likely to think of finding the mean. You add all of the numbers in the set and divide by how many numbers are in the list.

Median

To determine the median, the list of numbers should be arranged in order from lowest to highest. The number in the middle or the average of the two middle numbers is the median.

Mode

Mode refers to the number in a list that occurs most often.

Using Mean: An Example

If you have the numbers 125, 65, 40, 210 and 65, the average would be 101, or the total of all five numbers (505) divided by the number in the list (five).

Comparing to Median and Mode

Median and mode methods would produce different answers than mean. For both, the average would be 65.